Dubious Gifts

I recently came across a quote from E. B. White (from something he called "Here is New York"). It instantly entranced me. Here it is:

"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy .... The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky."

Willing to be lucky. How subtly packed a phrase that is!

But what I first love about this passage is that E.B. White refers to loneliness as a gift. Which he says privacy also is. This sharpens my understanding, through my own life here, that I had to shed just about every defense and terror which proceeded from an American suburban set of premises; premises that are as much a part of American education as learning to like (or accept as normal) peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. At the heart of these premises is the idea of family: that it is only IN a family you can find the deepest communion and meaning. I know this is powerfully true for some, but boy did it turn out not to be true for me. It was by living through my loneliness (largely because I couldn't create that family, largely because I didn't know that I didn't want to), and bearing the terrible pain of it as a kind of beauty, a rite of passage maybe, that I've come to a sort of clearing. What that clearing offers is, in fact, 'privacy' -- of which New York, oddly for all its supposedly crammed millions of souls (though I've never felt New York to be crammed), is perhaps the best & most gratifying source. I cannot tell you the pleasure I feel right now "alone" in this amazing home knowing that the infinity of the city - which correlates for me with the infinity of the human Unconscious -- is not only 'around' or outside me, but IS me, and is the source of why I feel this pleasure and gratification in privacy, in my solitude. I don't know how to make that not sound contradictory, but it isn't. (You can't talk about this stuff without resorting to double-negatives.)

But loneliness? What would that mean? I can't even get to the existential Sartrean kind anymore. Oh, I suppose I could if I tried - and god knows my poems seem to go there often enough - but to stay with that sort of theatrical oppressiveness would very quickly make me fall out of my chair laughing.

The only images I can think of to illustrate any of this at the moment are some of the kaleidograms I'd forgotten I'd put into my files and just bumped into a little while ago. What those kaleidograms do to & with consciousness is close to the most wonderful model for me of what consciousness can breed. What is the alchemy that sifts the unknowable - the infinity of the 'Id' - of the Unconscious - of New York - into memorable specific magic that can be captured in word and image and sound? I don't know, but I sometimes think my Instagram Layout App knows. Here are a few of its findings. None of which are remotely lonely. They're too engaged to imagine separateness.

Engaged, as I just now realized looking at them again, entirely with Manhattan plant life.That's pretty funny, really.

"Let me show you pics of my city my city my city!" 

"Excuse me sir, but aren't these, um, leaves? I've seen leaves."

"Not like these you haven't, honey."

.

Designated Fallguy

If, like this wingèd thing, you suddenly found out

you were a figment of someone’s imagination,

would you believe that you exist? Would you insist

you were a fake? If you could make a figment

of your own imagination come to life, would you

be tempted to believe that you were God? Is God

whatever conjured up the being whom you think

you know as you? Should you implore it or ignore it?

Are you a random calculation that went wrong?

Were you discarded? How long do discards last?

Will you live an instant or forever? Or were you

never here at all? Will you fall, Guy? Perhaps

you are the designated fallguy. Hard to tell now

that the only thing you know is that some business

took upon itself your being here. Or are you

just a figment of your own imagination? Do you

account for everythimg you’re seeing here?

That might be best. Perhaps then you could rest.

.

Annie, Amelia Earhart and the Bearded Man

Whenever Annie fed her flying cat,

a certain bearded man came back,

a handsome bearded man, in fact –

who spoke of this, but never that,

if “that’s” what Annie thought “that” was,

to ponder the sort of cat this was.

Clearly he’d never heard the buzz

that ran through town about the fuzz

and fur Amelia Earhart shed

which hadn’t missed a face or head

or food served out of doors: to eat

fur balls in soup was not a treat.

But no, the bearded man was there

because he loved seeing Annie care

for something so benignly rare

and interesting. Still sweeter fare

was when he heard the kitty’s name:

Amelia Earhart! – amazing dame!

And now he knew (had some bell

rung?) that Annie was one as well.

.

Elemental Love

What are the elements in elemental love?

Why do we cry when we encounter it? Is its anguish

biological? Or are we cowed by some neurotic terror

that we’ve lost it, lack the stuff – ergo, will snuff our

fragile species? Is it Penelope’s fidelity to absentee

Ulysses, and quite another business in the heart?

Is it immersed in the unconscious art of nursing

at a mother’s breast? The only way I’ve felt it is, I cry

when I encounter it. Is that the test? Perhaps that’s

more about my urge to cry than any revelation of what

my supply of love is, whatever kinds of it there are.

Some loves exult in moon and star. Some are afflictions

of the flesh, red hot and blue. I think that’s what

I had with you. But where’s its spirit, what’s its letter?

Would I understand it better if I were in love?

Too late and lame, I think, for that. Did Casey ever

play the game? Did I? They say we did. But who are

they? Maybe they lied. Did we ever swing the bat?

.

From Their Mama, the Star

The artist grows fuzzy - turns

red-orange-pinkishly indistinct – while

exactitude reigns in outlining articulate

sharp thin black lines that confine

the pastel-hued shenanigan standing

in back of the artist in billowing curves –

as if it is the vision the artist deserves –

amid other lines twining around like

the miscreant creatures they are. Welcome

to this part of whatever star cooked up all

of their leptons and quarks to eject them

eruptively out to become the odd

business they’ve been in this twisted

existence so far – this opera buffa –

this bloop of bizarre bazaar.

.

Edited by God.

Fire the liar.

Make sentences

declarative.

Confess paternity.

(Life is desire,

bent fences make

the narrative,

sired by eternity.)

+

Unambiguously

state that it is true,
& you are you
& you are doing this.

(I unambiguously

state this is a view
& you are me & I am you

& we are doing this.)

+

Neither kneel

to nor appeal

for an espousal

with abysses.

(Steal, reveal,

unreel to arousal:

lasciviously seal it

with kisses.)

.

Prestissimo or Largo

Some carry, some are carried back –

some never finish that C flat soundtrack –

some feast on salsa, mezzoforte or piano –

intone a mighty bass, sing adequate soprano,  

become the spouse who waits to nab you

or the guy who waits to pay the tab you

leave when you too often to the bar go.

Serendipity decrees the show

and every starring and subsidiary role.

Bowls will fill and bells will toll

at random or be rung,

inflammatory songs be sung

which land you in the slammer.

But whether you’re the nail or hammer,

bow politely or give lip

to who-or-what commands the ship

prestissimo or largo,
you’re the precious cargo.

.